The Scientology Mindset

There is enough to say about the Scientology mindset to write a book about it. But I will be brief and sum up what I see as the main point in this short blog post.

It boils down to introspection. And it goes like this:

There must be a reason. In the past. Something you did or something that was done to you. Something you don’t know that you must know. Every bad thought, every “misemotion”, every discomfort, every quirk has a cause that must be uncovered. What happened? Why did it happen? What did I do to cause it to happen? And there is no way you can rid yourself of anything except finding the root cause and get that elusive “cognition“. And it can only be done with L. Ron Hubbard’s tech(nology). You must find out. You must uncover. Or else you will carry the burden, the problem with you indefinitely. And it will only get worse. Unless you avail yourself of the tech. Ponder. Ponder. Figure. Figure. Why?? Hmmm. why, oh why? It must be me. Me. Me!

Jeez. Take a chill pill. Stress less. Learn to say “Fuck It!” I believe the main problem is the person thinking there is a problem. And the problem is created here and now. The reason, the cause is never in the past. The reason there is a mental issue is because the person creates the mental issue — right here, right now. What about not giving a shit and stop creating that problem. Never mind the past. Just chill, relax, take a deep breath and say “Fuck It!”.

“Why spend years in meditation to free yourself of the effects of karma? In fact, there’s no such thing as karma – you’re just thinking there is, and creating it all, here and now. Just take a deep breath and say ‘fuck it’, Take a chill pill and all will be well.”

No, I don’t want the “CoS Scientology mindset” – which is what you describe in the blog post. It isn’t the mindset of core Scientology. Here’s just one reference:

“Thought can pervade an area or approximate a situation and KNOW. The mind thinks with light facsimiles, or no facsimiles at all.

“Thus there is a compulsion early on the track to have facsimiles. Then, as one ceases to ‘know’, one is at length no longer in control of his facsimiles but is their victim. Given enough facsimiles, a man dies; a theta being decays until it can’t even be a Man.

“How, then, does one strip away facsimiles from the present time of the preclear? The auditor would have to audit billions of them to erase all the facsimiles the preclear has made or “borrowed” and which now act heavily upon him, giving him illness, degradation and aberration—as well as amnesia as to his actual past.

“We can rehabilitate the preclear by raising his ability to create energy, and thus bring him to a “speed” which has sufficient output for him to overcome facsimiles. We do this by erasing or reducing certain facsimiles, and, in doing so, retrain our preclear to produce a higher energy potential.” (Scn 8-80)

And then Hubbard digs right in and convinces his fellow Man that he Has to go Earlier Similar to get to the Cause of his mental issues. Talk about a Red Herring. Yes Marildi, I agree there is an inconsistency there.

Geir: “Every bad thought, every ‘misemotion’, every discomfort, every quirk has a cause that must be uncovered.”

LRH: “…bring him to a ‘speed’ which has sufficient output for him to overcome facsimiles. We do this by erasing or reducing CERTAIN facsimiles..” [i.e. not “Every…”]

Geir: “You must find out. You must uncover. Or else you will carry the burden, the problem with you indefinitely. And it will only get worse. Unless you avail yourself of the tech. Ponder. Ponder. Figure. Figure. Why?? Hmmm. why, oh why? It must be me. Me. Me!”

No LRH has figure-figure or asks “Why?” as any part of auditing. Basically, you simply run through and relate the incident, and only go to earlier similar ones up to the point where the charge has been handled – charge that no longer has power over you.

But if you’re referring to the “Truth Rundown” as it is done in the RPF, for example, then that is not core Scientology by a long shot.

It is quite obvious to me that the mindset described above is prevalent with scientologist – and not only those in the CoS. It is very much there with scientologists outside the church. And it certainly does originate with Hubbard’s insistence on looking inward and backward into the past. And his insistence that you must “cognite” about the cause. Rather than simply stop creating the problem. Not entirely disregarding psychotherapy, but it does has its liability.

I would have to agree that the CoS mindset is there even with most Scientologists outside of the church – the mindset that was instilled in them when they were in the church. And that indoctrination needs to be reassessed, which many have done.

But there is no core tech involving, as you say, “insistence that you must ‘cognite’ about the cause.” The cog that one has at the end of a process is whatever it is – there’s no qualification for what it needs to be. Again, you may be referring to the “Truth Rundown” or the like – where so many basic principles of tech are grossly violated.

Nope. Not looking at the Truth Rundown. But rather at Dianetics, rudiments,the majority of the grades processes, FPRD and so much more. The CoS cannot be blamed for all that tech 🙂

It is nice to have a church to blame for mishandling Hubbard’s tech. But that tech itself is based much on introspection. Again, not disregarding all of such psychotherapy – but the liability is real. It is the same with most of the people I have seen that has had much regular psychotherapy. The figure-figure introspection is unhealthy.

Marildi: But there is no core tech involving, as you say, “insistence that you must ‘cognite’ about the cause.” The cog that one has at the end of a process is whatever it is – there’s no qualification for what it needs to be.

Chris: Of course there is such an insistence. One attains the correct cog and EP or he doesn’t move on from one level to another.

Marildi: “But if you’re referring to the “Truth Rundown” as it is done in the RPF, for example, then that is not core Scientology by a long shot.”

Chris: Of course it is core Scientology. The argument that one can pick and choose bits of Scientology supported by the “no true Scotsman” fallacy, and then continue to refer to oneself as a Scientologist is of course, fallacious and outrageous. The Church of Scientology, as it exists today, is the natural outgrowth of the religion of Scientology. That you do not acknowledge this is also the natural outgrowth of a life given over to the inconsistent ideology of Scientology. But it is just one little piece of being a Scientologist. You don’t get to pick and choose which pieces of Scientology are true and which pieces are false; which pieces are important and which pieces are less important; which bits you can degrade and which bits to exalt. By Scientology Standards, this only makes you a squirrel Scientologist and not a true Scientologist.

Yes, I too agree with Marildi that Hubbard is inconsistent. The pervasive red herring posed in the debate on the doctrine of Scientology is that Hubbard was all right or all wrong. It’s not that he never said or wrote a correct thing. It’s that his work is so inconsistent that to give oneself to it and try to follow it drives one mad. And the fact that it empties one’s pocketbooks shows Hubbard in an unflattering light.

The red herring in the debate against the Church of Scientology is that it is the Church which has perverted the good work of L. Ron Hubbard. I do not think this is correct. I think Scientology is that path Hubbard warns us against in KSW. You know the one, “those rocks are pretty but the way out doesn’t lead that way.”

The Scientology assumption and assertion that one needs a path out is organization-wide “out-interiorization” (joke – there is not really any such thing as out-int except as we create it in session in real time) This is also a pervasive red herring. One truly needs to come to grips with their existence as it is being created in present time, not as it was made by Marcabs, Martians, Obama, or even one’s ex-wife or ex-husband.

Sorry, Vinnie, but there is no figure-figure in auditing. All one does is to LOOK – thoroughly. And by so doing, the charge is released. The key difference between auditing and other methods of “looking at what’s there” is that it’s very systematic. And with metered auditing, it becomes even more systematic and efficient because the charge that is readily available is located.

There would be no correction lists necessary if mindfulness was practiced in Scientology. Lack of emphasis on mindfulness, repetitive questioning and limited functionality of the E-meter pushes a person inevitably into figure-figure in most scientology processing.

Vin, you can’t evaluate the tech only on your personal experience. That’s not even scientific. 😉 It may very well have been what happened to you and to some others, but it was not the experience of most people – at least not in the early years. The experience of the majority was just like Geir’s – extremely positive. This isn’t to defend the changes in both tech and management as the years went on. Not at all.

And why can’t he? You do. Routinely. You haven’t done the Bridge and refuse to. Yet you quote and quote Hubbard yet you don’t actually believe what you preach. You believe that Scientology is true and go digging about for confirmation of your bias but that is not the Scientology Bridge to Total Freedom. It is just the Scientology mindset.

Correction lists simply are part of the tech. So while it may be true that mindfulness doesn’t need correction lists, it may also be true that it doesn’t provide the kinds of results that auditing does. 😉

I agree with you that what you say here is definitely part of the Scientology mindset.

Witness especially, every time you get a cold you have to get a PTS interview to find out why. How wonderful it has been for me the past few years since leaving, whenever I get a cold, to just wait out the few days of the cold, and not always have to try to figure out “what PTSness just had gotten restimulated”.

On the other hand, there’s also something I remember from some Hubbard lectures that specifically said that you DON’T have to have a reason why something happened. When something happens it happened because it happened and that’s all. He said something like there ISN’T a reason something occurred and it would be harmful to always be trying to find out why.

I took this data to heart and in a lot of ways ceased to always try to find out WHY all the time. Much more freeing to live that way.

I think the lectures I heard that in are the ones called Anatomy of the Spirit of Man.

Thank you for pointing this out. Seems we have tracked down an inconsistency. I very much prefer the latter over the former “witch hunt” PTS tech. Interestingly, I never got better from a cold any quicker with a PTS handling than just waiting out the cold.

Neither did I. I realized this a couple years before leaving. I’d get a PTS handling, then three days later the cold would go away. Or I wouldn’t get a PTS handling. Then three days later the cold would go away.

But one time my wife had a cold and I ran “What haven’t you lost lately?” on her, and she realized what she had lost, the cold went away immediately and did not come back.

Other times she got a cold and I’d run that process or some other assist on her, and the cold would just go away in the usual amount of time, regardless of assists.

Hubbard also talks a lot of the importance to being in present time, but when you are always having to find out why, that is putting your attention on the past – which is not being in present time.

Just goes back to the old thing: Study it and make your own observations of the degree of truth and workability of what you study.

Like you, I prefer not having to find why, in the regular course of life.

Im with you Geir. Life is about looking ahead, not behind. People ask me if I regret being in Scientology. I tell them no. I don’t have regrets. They are a waste of energy. I tend to look forward rather than backwards. I made decisions that were based on my emotional, intellectual and experiencial situation at the time. How could I dislike myself now for the decisions I made then? The thing I tell them is that they had better have learned from the experiences and decisions they made in the past and about which they now regret. What a waste to have done something or made decisions in the past but which you learned nothing from. Life is a learning experience. I’m glad I did what I did in the past. I have learned truck loads from those experiences and am wiser for them. I’m glad I have lived a life of making mistakes and picking up and going again. I can honestly say that I am the best person now that I have been. I’m glad I have had a life of adventure and learning. I’d still like to see Miscavage burn in hell though….. : )

1. Going back to when something happens can and does work – but as I pointed out, it has its liability in that it trains the person to work out his issues “on a via” rather than simply stop creating the issue right here and now. The reason this becomes such a liability in Scientology (and other mental practices) is that the person is not warned against this tendency of introspection and “witch hunting” for “a reason” why shit happens. One should know that such therapies are indeed “working on a via” and that it only serves to trick the person into believing that it works in order for him to let go of creating the issue.

2. Those parts of Scientology that helps the person look outward or helps the person stop figure-figure about shit is IMO the most effective. For me, this was the Communication Drills (TRs), OT 2, OT 5-7 and OT 8.

1. People certainly are warned against what you describe – which is called “self auditing.” (Tor Ivar, that is not the same as “book auditing,” using books like Self Analysis or Handbook for Preclears – which is more than okay to do on oneself.)

2. Most people who would skip the auditing steps you leave out would fall flat on their faces on OT 2. The earlier steps prepare them. And I find it verrrry hard to believe you did not get a lot of benefits from the grades and Dianetics.

1. Not talking about self-auditing. I am talking about the tendency for Why witch-hunting (like the PTS tech).

2. How do you know that they “would fall flat on their faces”? Have you tried it or seen anyone try it? Hubbard would tell you that you can only follow his “closely marked path”, and you may chose to believe him. But do you really know?

1. Did you know that many counselors today recommend locating the “toxic personality” in your life and cutting the comm line with them? Yes, that’s right – they finally caught up with LRH – even giving similar figures for the percentage of anti-social personalities (psychopaths)! They also have methods for handling those who aren’t true psychopaths, such things as letting them know your “boundaries.” So as you can see, today’s counselors advise “handle or disconnect.” (But I guess you would disagree with them and give them the same advice you give Buddhists? :P)

2. As for people jumping right to OT 2, here’s what LRH says in the OT 2 materials:

“It is now a proved fact that none of the Basic Bank will erase on a preclear until all
the lower grades are properly established on a preclear and then the Basic Bank
confronted in it’s exactness, item by item in sequence and in it’s exact relationship to the rest of the Bank.”

Note that the above wasn’t to be read until one actually got to OT II, so it wasn’t some LRH “ploy” as the critics love to claim. Nowadays, these confidential materials can be found online, but the the above quote from the OT II course materials was written decades before the material was available on the Internet.

2. You have no proof, no example of why a person cannot jump from TRs to OT2 except some quote by LRH that simply indicate it cannot be done – and without him even backing it up one bit. Sorry. No show.

2. I have no proof. My point was that LRH said he did have proof – and he said it to those who were already up to OT 2, so it seems pretty clear that he had no ulterior motive for saying it. The question I have for you is what proof do YOU have that people – let’s just say “most people” – would be able to jump from TRs to OT 2?

1. Scientology’s instilling in its parishioners that one Must find the Why. That one must dig (audit) and search (PTS tech) and FIND OUT the WHY. Etc.

2. LRH said he had proof… He said that about so many things without providing any proof that I lost count a long time ago. It gets to the point that when LRH says he has proof it is an even greater chance that he doesn’t. It’s like he claims to have proof to simply shut people up. Science supplies proof. Religion doesn’t have to. And Scientology is a religion. Dogmatic to the core. Now to the point: You claimed that people would “fall flat on their faces” if they went from TRs to OT2. Without any proof whatsoever a you admit. When you claim such a thing, you will be charged with backing up your claim. Which you failed to do. I didn’t claim anything except that I think it would be perfectly fine For Me to go from TRs to OT2. That is my subjective reality.

1. Yes, that’s exactly what I was responding to – the “witch hunting of PTS tech” – which is quite like what many practitioners today are recommending.

But as for finding the Why in auditing, I would say that is misconstruing what auditing is about – it is simply a matter of finding the source of the charge. Now, I suppose you could conceive of that as “digging for the why” but it stretches the meaning considerably because as such it isn’t what the procedure of auditing has one “hunt” for. Auditing simply parallels the workings of the mind, which is a matter of experiences approximating other experiences resulting in stimulus-response reactions. And the sole object of auditing is to handle the charge that produces such reactions.

2. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” And you’ve attested to that proof yourself – although you now seem to want to deny it.

But you are right that I really can’t claim to know people would fall flat on their faces if they tried to go from TRs to OT 2. And neither can you claim that you wouldn’t have fallen flat on your face since you did OT 2 after having done all the earlier steps. So I guess we’ve both been spouting our religious beliefs. 🙂

My voicing the opinion that I believe I could go from TRs to OT2 straight is in a different league than you claiming any person would fail in doing so. I advice you to be more careful in throwing around such claims without proof. LRH did a lot of the same. And it has brought him much disrepute.

Wow, that was something of a thread I kicked off, I almost feel proud, but it was most unintentionally … 🙂

But, with due respect AND the awareness that I know nothing about the contents of the OTs-whatever, I get the feeling that it was the down-to-earth (OK wrong word, but I think you understand what I mean), practical and methodical approach to dealing with life and everything in general, other people, ones own and others’ bad behaviour and emotions etc., that seems to be most valued by you, Geir …

I notice that you don’t mention anything about the “vitamin run-down” (I think that was how described it), I’m also unsure of what “amount” of “spirituality” you may have found useful …

… and yes, I’m on the second step a trace-route I’m trying to follow down, I may be wrong on it but I’ll kind of have to find out …

Maybe – but as I said to Tor Ivar, one should be made very aware of the liability of introspection and “figure-figure” to the point where the person is clear and aware of this via in the therapy and avoids the pitfalls of witch-hunting for The Why for everything. Scientologists are the most uptight people I know when it comes to this hunting for whys.

Actually, there is no absolute reason because there is no ultimate cause. Both reason and cause are relative. What is described by Factor #1 is off-the-cuff wishful thinking.

FACTOR # 1: BEFORE THE BEGINNING WAS A CAUSE AND THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF THE CAUSE WAS THE CREATION OF EFFECT.

I do not subscribe to the following defintions of CAUSE from Scientology:
“1. Cause could be defined as emanation. It could be defined also, for purposes of communication, as source-point. 2. A potential source of flow. 3. Cause is simply the point of emanation of the communication. Cause in our dictionary here means only ‘source point’.”

To me, ’cause’ appears as follows:
When an event is identified as the consequence of another event, then the former is called an effect of the latter cause. Cause is actually the starting point of effect. It is the same event extended in time. It is an error to look upon cause and effect as separate events.

Cause and effect are abstractions gleaned from associations observed among events. The ‘effect’ event is understood as a consequence of the ‘cause’ event. A closer look shows cause and effect to be aspects of the same event that is essentially extended in spacetime.

All ’cause-effect’ events seem to be concatenated with each other with no absolute beginning or ending. The point to be emphasized is that cause and effect are relative to each other. Neither cause nor effect exists in isolation. The idea of a potential cause is balanced with the idea of potential effect.

Cause-effect association is not necessarily linear or one-dimensional. It can easily be observed to be 2-dimensional since an event may be caused by many causative factors, and a causative factor may influence many events.

Cause-effect associations may even be perceived as a three or multi-dimensional matrix.

You confused the SCN term ‘Cause’ with ‘reason for’. Out of SCN ’cause’ is indeed used as ‘reason for’. That only happened in Dianetics. In SCN Cause meant self. A SCN Clear knows he had been creating his stuff –he is that Cause.

@ Marildi, Or you could express your own opinion. The Scientology mindset is set. The Scientologist has an ideology through which it thinks. We’ve, most of us, read all your Hubbard quotes and worked through them long before you reiterated them. We’ve, many of us, conceded that your ideology is consistent within its own context of being right, which is of course nonsense to one looking in from the outside.

Yes he did say that, and I blew a fully developed head cold while doing a 10 minute “10 AUG” Ethics handling 35 years ago. Now I believe I understand what occurred. This doesn’t mean that I still believe what I believed 35 years ago as you seem to.

This is in response to Marildi’d post above:https://isene.me/2013/10/03/the-scientology-mind-set/#comment-45883
.
That LRH quote about facsimilies is interesting. LRH defines facsimile in SCN-8008 as follows:
“a facsimile is an energy picture which can be reviewed again. A facsimile contains more than fifty easily identified perceptions. It also contains emotion and thought.”

I happen to believe that complete facsimilies make a very small percentage of the mental database. Most of the database consists of the cross-indexing of bits of perception. Per article on memory in Wikipedia, perception retains its exact form for not more than few hundred milliseconds before it transforms into experience. In other words, the facsimile breaks down into smaller bits or “atoms”, which are then indexed per some compression algorithm to save storage space. Successive compression takes place over time as in following stages (approximate only):
Perception (level of complete facsimile)
Experience (compression level 1)
Information (compression level 2)
Hypothesis (compression level 3)
Theory (compression level 4)
Principles (compression level 5)
Axioms (compression level 6)
Self (compression level 7)

There seem to be a marvellous algorithm of “compression by stages” in the mind. Data is stored in terms of “atomic” perceptions that are idexed to be used again and again. Data in all these stages are cross indexed. When a memory is recalled it is recreated from “atomic” perceptions using the system of cross-indexing. A recalled memory is never a precisely stored picture that is reviewed. Data gets rearranged somewhat in the recreation from the indexing of “atomic” perception.

Vinaire: Data gets rearranged somewhat in the recreation from the indexing of “atomic” perception.

Chris: I believe there is something to this. And I think its possible that because the memory is created or manufactured newly in the present from as you say a type of indexing that because of the possibly fractal type formulae involved that the memories created in present are similar to but not an exact representation.

That is good advice to seek balance. Your comments fit fine and are welcome. Blogging is fun and a good way to express your opinions in order to see how they fit with others. I learn a lot from others when I see their response to my opinions.

What a neat thread to read. Lots of figure, figure and thinking and lots of straight forward talk along with some laughter from my end. When I went back in for that year a few years ago, I had at least 3 colds in the year. Once i really got out of the mind-set for almost 2 years now not one cold. I went to Clear and training to NED years ago and looking back when my hubby ran some NOTs on me I reached a point, I remember, tho in different words, said F**kIt. It worked then and works now even better. I am so happy to be free from that Scio mind-set and live in present time, enjoying, handling life and keeping busy as I want it. So really to each his own and joyous not to be under the control and suppression of another.
Just visiting and thought to say hello to all of you. Luv u. 🙂

Before I read Dianetics (around 1995 maybe) I was getting an average of 2-3 colds every year. I mean the harsh ones with high fever etc. After reading it, without any processing, I reduced it to one per 3 years maybe –and lighter than before. I think the difference for me was to know that it wasn’t just a body matter, but rather a spirit-over-body matter.

Geir, I thought of a little experiment that can be done to prove that charge does not exist unless created. One can recall something he has much charge on -a fierce ARC break or whatever- and observe the charge and then maybe recall another one (without discharging them) and then imagine how it would be like to have in existence 10000000000000000000000000000 of them stored somewhere. Would he take it? Would the earth take it? Would the universe take it? Phew. Thank you 😛

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